


let's run away together and never look back

by intertwiningwords



Category: The End Of The Fucking World (TV)
Genre: AU, F/M, Happy Ending, better ending, the ending they deserved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 09:45:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15192104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intertwiningwords/pseuds/intertwiningwords
Summary: kiss me 'til my lips are numb / squeeze my heart until it breaks / i'm not afraid of the burning sun / no, I will do whatever it takesor, james and alyssa escape to paris.





	let's run away together and never look back

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote the ending that my kids deserved

Sure, they couldn’t escape it forever. But it was nice to pretend like the past didn’t exist...like everything was okay.

Paris was nice. Well, it was actually pretty shit. Didn’t really live up to the standard of the beautiful, romantic city it was supposed to be. 

But it was somewhere they could be safe, at least for a while. They managed to take a lot of Leslie’s drug money along with his boat.

Finally out of their ugly floral clothing and posted up in a little hotel room, they felt safe for the first time since they’d left home. And they felt...almost, well, happy. Alyssa thought she’d been happy, with her dad, but that quickly disappeared.

And James, well, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been happy. Actually, genuinely happy. It was the closest he’d felt to happy in years.

They didn’t have the guts to go out in public quite yet. They had to lie low and get on the move soon. So instead, they locked themselves up in the hotel room and tried to just live in their own little world.

“Think you could dye my hair again?” Alyssa asked, twirling strands of her bleached hair in her skinny fingers.

“Sure,” James replied. “What color this time?”

“Something cool,” Alyssa replied. “Like blue or something. I’ve always wanted cool hair, but my mom would never let me.”

“Don’t you think that’d stand out too much though?”

“Good point. Maybe just black then.” 

James nodded. “Maybe I should go blond?”

Alyssa giggled. “I think you’d look shit with blond hair.”

James couldn’t help the way his lips quirked too, a huff of breath leaving his mouth, his weak version of laughter. He hadn’t really laughed in a long time either. “It’s not really about how it looks.”

“I know,” she replied, sobering the moment.

“It would look pretty silly though,” James said after a moment of tense silence. His lips tugged upwards again, and Alyssa couldn’t help but chuckle softly again. She was looking at him with a fondness in her eyes, and it made his still cold heart thaw a little more.

And then she was laughing again. “Sorry, I’m just- I can’t stop picturing it. Imagine how we’d look, walking down the street- you with blond hair and mine fucking blue! We’d look mad!”

And James actually lets a small laugh leave him then because it was a pretty funny sight.

 

***

 

Day two in the hotel, having only left their room to eat complimentary breakfast before disappearing upstairs again.

“Where do you want to go after Paris?” Alyssa asked, laying flat on her back on the double bed and staring up at the ceiling. Her feet dangled over the edge, still clad in her black boots.

James shrugged. “I dunno. Germany, maybe?”

“That would be nice. My mom went there once when she was younger. She said it was beautiful.”

James laid down on the bed beside her. “Yeah.”

“James?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I kiss you?”

“Yeah.”

Alyssa turned to face him, eyes scanning over his face before leaning in to press their lips together.

They were awkward, and messy, and oh so fragile, both of them. They weren’t used to being vulnerable people. But they brought it out in one another, which was simultaneously terrifying and romantic as fuck.

They took it slow. James could probably go the rest of his life abstaining from sex, and Alyssa didn’t mind that one bit. After everything, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to not picture that man’s face-

“Are you alright?” James asked, pulling away.

“I’m good,” she smiled at him. “Just let my mind wander. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Do you wanna stop?”

“Please.”

“Okay.”

And neither of them pushed it.

 

***

 

By day three, James walked to the corner store in a hoodie and bought them each some hair dye, a pack of tampons, a cheap bottle of wine, and some snacks.

Alyssa looked weird with dark hair, but it sort of suited her more than the blonde had. And James, though his hair was significantly lighter, looked pretty much the same. They tried cutting his bangs some more, but it still didn’t do them any good.

Their snacks and wine were quickly finished (consumed mostly by Alyssa), and they were back to mindlessly flipping through television channels and purposefully avoiding the news that mostly contained their own faces.

Eventually, it became more of a nuisance than a comfort and Alyssa turned it off, tossing the remote across the room for no real reason. She really didn’t have much respect for anyone’s belongings.

“Being on the run is so boring,” she huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. “The films always make it look so fun.”

“They only show you the cool stuff,” James replied.

“Well that’s not fair,” Alyssa said. “Giving people this false idea that being a criminal is so fun. No one ever mentioned the hotel rooms with shitty room service and how uncomfortable most stolen clothes are.”

James let out a huff of air that resembled a laugh.

Alyssa sat up to face him, her arms still crossed over her chest, her brows furrowed. “You’re pretty boring too,” she said.

“Fuck off,” James replied though there was no real malice in his words.

She grinned. “I just mean you’re so quiet. You’re not a great conversation maker. You barely even smile or laugh. I mean, I’m fucking funny, James.”

His lips twitched. To him, that was a smile.

“C’mon, you can smile bigger than that.”

He twisted his face into the most exaggerated, fake smile he could muster.

She burst out laughing. “I said smile not look like a serial killer!”

“Aren’t I though?”

She stopped laughing. “No. You only killed one person, James. You have to kill more than one person to be a serial killer.”

He looked down at his scarred hand and shook his head.

“Hey, look at me, James.”

He forced his gaze upwards into her blue eyes.

“He was a bad, bad man and he would have hurt me just like he did those other girls. You had to do it.”

And he sighed, and he nodded. “Okay.”

And they were back to flipping channels.

 

***

 

“You smile more now.”

James looked up from his hands. “Huh?”

“Ever since we got here, you seem...happier.”

Germany was as pretty as Alyssa’s mom had described it. They still had to be cautious, but they felt safer going out in public. 

James shrugged. “I guess I am.”

“I like it.”

And Alyssa would have sworn James blushed, but maybe it was just her imagination.

She crawled to the edge of the bed to sit in front of him. “James?”

“Yeah?”

“Will you kiss me?”

“Okay.”

And he leaned down to connect their lips, albeit still a little clumsily, but it had the sort of reciprocated passion that their kisses had never seemed to share before.

Alyssa shut her eyes and felt herself sink deeper in his kiss, her hands reaching up to hold onto his hips before slipping beneath his baggy sweater to hold his hips.

“Your hands are cold,” he mumbled against her mouth.

“Warm them up then,” she replied, running her hands up his back.

And James actually giggled, pulling her in for another kiss.

It was the cutest thing she had ever heard.

 

***

 

It was nice to escape together, both literally and metaphorically. They would probably be on the run for a long time, and neither of them knew what their futures had in store.

But in crappy hotels around Europe, secluded in their rooms, they could be just James and Alyssa, two fucked up kids who found comfort and happiness within each other.

And just for a little bit, everything was okay. Just okay.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed! feedback is always appreciated. a kudos or comment can make a writer's day! :)
> 
> tumblr: intertwiningwords.tumblr.com


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